Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell born

Author

Website Name

Year Published

Title

URL

Access Date

March 31, 2015

Publisher

A+E Networks

On this day in 1963, Malcolm Gladwell, author of such non-fiction best-sellers as “The Tipping Point,” “Blink” and “Outliers,” is born in Fareham, Hampshire, England. Known for taking a counterintuitive look at questions about modern life, Gladwell’s writing has explored everything from IQ tests to why people choose Coke over Pepsi.

Raised in rural Ontario, Canada, where his English-born father was a university math professor and his Jamaican-born mother was a psychotherapist, Gladwell graduated from the University of Toronto in 1984 with a degree in history. Starting in 1987, he worked as a reporter for The Washington Post, covering business and science, before being hired, in 1996, as a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine.

In 2000, Gladwell published his first book, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference,” which examines the moment when an idea, product or behavior reaches the point where it tips, or spreads and gains critical mass. “The Tipping Point” used experts and academic studies to explain everything from the comeback of Hush Puppies shoes to the drop in crime in New York City in the early 1990s. Gladwell’s next book, “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking,” debuted in 2005 and is about the role of snap judgments and intuition in decision-making. Like his first book, “Blink” also applied science to a range of topics, including speed dating and military war games. The same year “Blink” was published, its author was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

Gladwell’s third book, “Outliers: The Story of Success,” about what sets high achievers apart from the rest of society, debuted in 2008, and looks at the careers of Bill Gates and the Beatles, among others. Gladwell’s books have sold millions of copies, and sparked a second lucrative career for their author as a public speaker.

In addition to his books and speaking engagements, Gladwell remains a staff writer for The New Yorker. In 2009, “What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures,” a compilation of his articles for the magazine, was released.

Also on this day

The American Revolution officially comes to an end when representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Spain and France sign the Treaty of Paris on this day in 1783. The signing signified America’s status as a free nation, as Britain formally recognized the independence of its 13 former American colonies,...

The American flag was flown in battle for the first time on this day in 1777, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the “Stars and Stripes” banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British...

On September 3, 1900, the first car ever made in Flint, Michigan makes its debut in the town’s Labor Day parade. Designed and built by a county judge and weekend tinkerer named Charles H. Wisner, the car was one of the only cars built in Flint that did not end...

Confederate General Leonidas Polk commits a major political blunder by marching his troops into Columbus, Kentucky–negating Kentucky’s avowed neutrality and causing the Unionist legislature to invite the U.S. government to drive the invaders away.
Kentucky was heavily divided prior to the war. Although slavery was prevalent in the state, nationalism was...

President George Bush prepares for his first summit meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The theme of the meeting was cooperation between the two superpowers in dealing with the Iraqi crisis in the Middle East. In August 1990, Iraqi forces attacked the neighboring nation of Kuwait, setting off a crisis...

A three-day hostage crisis at a Russian school comes to a violent conclusion after a gun battle erupts between the hostage-takers and Russian security forces. In the end, over 300 people died, many of them children, while hundreds more were injured.
On the morning of September 1, a group of Chechan...

A powerful hurricane slams into the Dominican Republic, killing more than 8,000 people, on this day in 1930. September is a prime month for hurricanes in the Caribbean, as storms that form off the African coast move west and are fueled by waters in the island region that have been...

The American flag is flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Maryland. Patriot General William Maxwell ordered the stars and strips banner raised as a detachment of his infantry and cavalry met an advance guard of British and Hessian troops. The rebels...

A new land-speed record is set by Britain’s famed speed demon, Sir Malcolm Campbell. On the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah, Campbell and his 2,500-hp motor car Bluebird made two runs over a one-mile course at speeds averaging 301.129 mph. In breaking the 300-mph barrier, he surpassed the world record...

The British 8th Army under Field Marshal Bernard L. Montgomery begins the Allied invasion of the Italian peninsula, crossing the Strait of Messina from Sicily and landing at Calabria–the “toe” of Italy. On the day of the landing, the Italian government secretly agreed to the Allies’ terms for surrender, but...

On this day in 1991, Frank Capra, a leading Hollywood director in the 1930s and 1940s whose movies include the now-classic You Can’t Take It With You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and It’s a Wonderful Life, dies at the age of 94 at his home in La Quinta, California....

No company has done more than Apple, Inc., to bring the world of technology together with the world of music. But those who are too young to remember the world before the iPod may never appreciate how just how far apart those worlds were back in 1982, when Apple co-founder...

On this day in 1885, General William Harney and 700 soldiers take revenge for the Grattan Massacre with a brutal attack on a Sioux village in Nebraska that left 100 men, women, and children dead.
The path to Harney’s bloody revenge began a year before near Fort Laramie, Wyoming, when a...

On this day in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson embarks on a tour across the United States to promote American membership in the League of Nations, an international body that he hoped would help to solve international conflicts and prevent another bloody world war like the one from which the country...

On September 3, 1977, Sadaharu Oh of Japan’s Yomiuri Giants hits the 756th home run of his career, breaking Hank Aaron’s professional record for career home runs. Oh was the greatest Japanese player of his era, though not the most popular because of his half-Japanese, half-Chinese background. Nonetheless, his record-breaking...

A U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG) of 35 men arrives in Saigon to screen French requests for American military aid, assist in the training of South Vietnamese troops, and advise on strategy.
President Harry Truman had approved National Security Council (NSC) Memorandum 64 in March 1950, proclaiming that French...

In South Vietnam’s national election, General Nguyen Van Thieu wins a four-year term as president with former Premier Nguyen Cao Ky as vice-president. They received only 34.8 percent of the votes cast, but the rest were divided among 10 other candidates. There were many allegations of corruption during the...

On September 3, 1914, barely a month after the outbreak of World War I, Giacomo della Chiesa is elected to the papacy of the Roman Catholic Church, becoming Pope Benedict XV.
An aristocratic native of Genoa, Italy, who had served as a cardinal since the previous May, Benedict succeeded Pius X,...

On this day in 1939, in response to Hitler’s invasion of Poland, Britain and France, both allies of the overrun nation declare war on Germany.
The first casualty of that declaration was not German—but the British ocean liner Athenia, which was sunk by a German U-30 submarine that had assumed the...